Artifact Acquired!
"Do you have to bring me along?" the woman said with the lower half of her body being dragged on the ground.
"Yes, just in case I need a hostage," Ymir said, running back to her teammates.
"How can you run like that?" the injured woman pointed at Ymir's wolf hind legs.
"I've run like this many times before so I'm used to it," Ymir said, running faster.
The woman crossed her arms. "Whatever. I swear if my teammates got flattened, I would lose it!"
Ymir followed the scent of Pieck and turned the corner to head back into the large park. She saw Pieck sitting on a bench while Porco was shouting aloud while punching a big ball made of dirt.
"What's going on here?" Ymir asked the teen sitting on the bench.
Pieck sighed. "Well, we managed to knock out one of the guys here," she pointed at the unconscious teal-haired man. "But, the dirt guy created a dome to protect himself and as you can see, Porco is not happy about that."
"Great…the guy is hiding in there like a little bitch!" Porco hit the dirt dome with a bone-armoured fist.
Pieck pointed at the woman in Ymir's hand. "What were you going to do with her?"
"I was thinking of using her as a hostage, but I don't know if it was going to work," Ymir looked at the dirt dome. "Well, let's try it."
Ymir approached the dirt ball and knocked as if she was in front of a door.
"Hello, is anyone there?'' she said but no response. "Hey, I have one of your teammates here and I'm going to snap her finger each time you don't give me the answer I want.So where's the artifact?"
Ymir placed her left ear on the dirt ball, she heard a shift in movement but no verbal response.
She kicked the ball. "I can hear you squirming in there, you little fucker! Open up!
"No! Leave me alone!"
Ymir punched the dirt dome. " Hey! Listen here, you piece of shit, I want to get this shit over with and unless you want your friend to get hurt, Mikel, I suggest you cough up the ball."
Ymir heard frantic movement in the dome.
"Teri?! You have Teri?!"
"Is that your name?" Ymir asked the woman with a scarred lip.
Teri nodded.
"Well, Teri here is going to lose fingers if you don't tell me where the artifact is," Ymir threatened.
"Go fuck yourself, she-wolf!"
Ymir chuckled a bit before she started to growl and claw the ball. "Do you think I won't do it?" She stepped on Teri, making her grunt in pain.
"Leave her alone!"
"Then tell me where the artifact is!"
"I don't want to fail!" Mikel shouted.
"Me either, but one of us is failing and it ain't my team. So, Mikel, it's either you grow a pair and fess up or your friend here takes the brunt of something that could've been avoided," Ymir started to dig the toenails of her foot into Teri's back, making her scream in pain.
"Ok, ok! I'll tell you just leave her alone," Mikel pleaded.
'Wise decision. I had her knife in my left pocket too just in case.'
The dirt ball slowly fell apart to show the purple-haired man with the golden ball in his left hand.
"Here, just please stop hurting her."
"Don't give it to them, Mikel!"
Ymir stomped on Teri. "You should be grateful that you didn't end up paralyzed from the waist down."
Ymir reached the ball until she felt a sharp cold breeze crawl up her spine making her decide to pull back. She felt pain in her fingers and when she looked at her right hand, half of her index and middle fingers were gone with the ends of the stubs squirting out blood. She cried out in pain as clutched her injured hand.
"Shit, he's here!"
Ymir turned to see the ice teen walking towards them with hardly any scuffs on his clothes.
'What the? He hardly has any scratches on him. Damn, Bert couldn't hold him off for a little longer?'
"Yes. He's here. Time for a rematch!" Porco created bone gauntlets and a chest plate before running to the ice teen.
The fair-skinned teen in a tracksuit bent his knees before suddenly blitzing behind Porco and kicking him with an ice-covered foot.
The teen looked at Mikel and started to slowly approach him.
"Wait!Wait!You know that I was joking right?! I wasn't going to actually give it to them!" Mikel pleaded, raising his hands in the air.
"Ymir, get the artifact!" Pieck ran to her.
Ymir looked back at Mikel and pounced on him, grabbing him by the throat and reaching for the golden ball. She felt the cold again, looking up to see the teen with an ice shard blade. She lifted her left hand to prepare to take the pain but Pieck took it instead, stabbing her through her left arm.
"Get the artifact!" Pieck shouted again, taking the knife from Ymir's pocket.
She jabbed the knife at him but he took a few steps back, dodging the attack. Porco jumped to the ice teen's right side and threw a punch but it was blocked by a newly formed ice wall. Pieck grabbed Teri and placed the tip of the blade at the side of her neck.
"Give…Ymir…the artifact…." Pieck said with her left arm covered in blood.
"Let her go!"
Ymir punched Mikel in the jaw, knocking him out and dropping the golden ball. She leaped and grabbed the ball before turning and throwing another punch at it, knicking her out and slumping into Pieck's arms. She let go of Teri, letting her drop on the ground before Ymir helped the dark-haired girl.
"Is your arm, okay?"
Pieck placed her hand on her wound, giving pressure to stop the bleeding. "I'll be fine but we're back to fighting him aga-"
Ymir pushed Pieck aside before she got kneed in the face by the teen in the tracksuit. She felt blood gushing out of her nose as she got up on her feet.
'Shit I could barely smell anything now!' Ymir stood up, wiping the blood off her face.
"Give it back," he said plainly.
"Fuck you," She curled her hands into fists.
He ran to her but a bone shard messed with his momentum, tripping on one of the shards. Ymir used this opportunity to grab him and throw him into a field of trees. She saw Porco struggling to stand up, his legs were shaking and his right cheek a purple hue.
"Fuck…he's strong," Porco admitted. "Jeez, it seems like the damage is catching up with me."
Ymir ran to Pieck. "Go to the return area now. I gave you the ball so, go!"
Pieck nodded before she leaped away.
"It seems like it's me and you, Porco," Ymir said, seeing the ice teen wiping the dirt off himself and looking at the brunette with cold anger.
"Yeah…let's do this," Porco encased his arms, legs, head and chest in bone.
The ice created a staff made of ice before twirling it around and pointing it at both of them.
"He's going to use a bo staff on us?" Porco said, chuckling.
"Get out of my way," he threatened the two.
"Go fuck yourself, you frosty piece of shit!" Porco dashed towards the teen with Ymir following suit.
Porco threw a punch but he dodged it and blocked Ymir's kick with the staff before slamming one side of the stick on the ground making an ice wall.
"Great, hiding behind a wall like a pussy," Porco snarled.
The ice teen must've heard them because he broke down the wall and went to Porco, swinging the staff swiftly and aggressively. The bone teen tried to block and evade his attacks but he was so fast that Ymir had trouble keeping track of them, all she saw was bone shards scattering from each blow.
She tried to punch him but he dodged and swiped the staff at her head. She narrowly dodged it and swung again but he dodged the first punch and blocked the second one before he broke the staff into two, swiped the one half at Ymir's feet, tripping her and swiped the other at Porco's head making his head cock back. He did a side-kick to Ymir's face before he elbowed Porco's gut and slammed a stick on Porco's head, hitting so hard that the half-staff shattered.
Blood started to flow from Porco's head making him stumble and land on his knees.
The teen threw a roundhouse kick forcing Porco's head to make contact with the ground. Ymir tried to get up but a sharp pain came from her ankle. The teen broke the other staff before he looked around and ran in the same direction.
"Shit, he's going after Pieck!" Ymir reverted to her human form to get a better look at her ankle. Her right ankle was already turning red. She tried to stand up again but her ankle failed her, so she resorted to using her full wolf form to put more ease on her ankle when she was running.
Ymir knew what Pieck smelled like so finding her isn't an issue but getting to her before he does is and with Porco out cold, he will be no help.
Ymir started to run but the pain from her ankle stung her every time she landed on her foot. She pushed herself through the pain but she had to take short breaks to not worsen her ankle even further.
Ymir hopped on the roof of a small building to prevent her from running into him.
"I'm going to regret this so much," she said before leaping to another building. She stumbled a bit on the landing but she landed nonetheless. She kept on leaping buildings that shared similar heights to feel as little pain as possible. It reminded her and her friends were when she had to do this back in the underground, hopping from one roof to another, but she came to a crossroads where the buildings around her were twice the height.
'Jumping off to that height is like wanting to get my ankle amputated.'
Ymir hopped back the streets and used the alleyways to be as discreet as possible.
Her scent was stronger, giving Ymir hope but she felt a small chill.
'Screw the pain! I have to get there now!'
Ymir sprinted through the alleyways. Ymir knows that if he gets Pieck, it will end well for her, especially with her weakness.
"Pieck!Pieck!" she called out her name now being in the middle of a street.
"Over here!" Ymir looked up to Pieck on the side of a ten-story building, waving her arms.
"Great…"
As Ymir was gathering herself to make a big jump. She began to run, only to hear crackling from the ground to see that she was under a sheet of ice.
"Fuck!" She leaped and slid on the ice sheet.
"Ymir!"
"Keep going! I'll hold him off!"
"Where's Porco?!"
"He's done for."
"Damn it, okay. Just be careful!"
"No promises."
Pieck jumped off the building. The ice teen created a shard before he shot to Pieck but Ymir caught the icicle in midair before crushing it with her teeth.
"Nice try."
The ice teen sighed. "You're irritating."
She turned into her hybrid form. "Right back at ya."